I thought that it was about time that I started organising my photo gallery so have created a flickr account

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cettina/

With all the pics from our trip and some other random stuff that I have taken over the last year. It is an ongoing project so some of the photos you may have already seen, but new pics should go up every week or so.

If you have a flickr account feel free to leave comments, suggestions, criticisms etc etc.. as I am all for improving!!

Enjoy.

Ciao for now

Cett xx

Well we are off to Sydney on the 24th June for a week. All I can say is YAY for holidays!

That is all.

Cett
xx

So as Mum and Neil are back from their honeymoon tomorrow, and maddles will be going home tomorrow, we're glad to say that Maddles has lost a whole Kilo and a half!!!
She has been a cute little bundle to have around- and has kept us amused with her dog ways. I have never seen her act more like a proper dog the entire we have had her! She eats dog food, loves going for walks and howls at the door if you leave her behind. She eats rawhide chews now, and barks at people that are in the park or walking past our front door, down the driveway. She also has a few friends around the neighborhood as well. Trixie, Kaiser, Milly, Pancake, Market and Cheesecake are all good friends of ours now.
Although we will miss having our little chubba around- it will be nice to go back to just one dog. It will make sleeping in a little easier!

On a sad note, we got a phone call from Meagan yesterday, asking if we would get in contact with mum and let her know that sadly Nina had passed away aged 99. She would have been 100 in June. But hopefully she is with her Harry and is in a much happier place.

While she will be sadly missed, she did live an amazing life and hopefully we can all remember to cherish each moment we have and love others while we are here.

xxx

Thought you might enjoy some video of Maddles being an actual DOG!

xx

Just a quick one to Congratulate Obama!

Here's hoping you can fix all the crap Bush did and that it doesn't drive you mental.

xx

Well I hope you are all doing well and your weather is great. Our's has been over 30 for the last 3 weeks. It's very dry, but the breeze in the afternoon is a blessing. On a fun note-we got Foxtel on Friday! So Cett has been enjoying her Food Channels, I've been updated with all the Hollywood Gossip and Entertainment news & Chris is happily enjoying it as well!
We got the IQ thingy for free-so we can record stuff off it too (it's kinda like TIVO).

We also went to Ikea to try and de clutter our dining room space-will be buying something from there when we get paid next! For sure.
So everyone here is doing great. Maddles has been here for almost 2 weeks now and her and lexi have really settled into it. It's like having 4 children though as someone is always doing something! Abigail howling/bella wants in or out, lexi is jumping on someone, maddles is being jumped on hahah
So we took some photo's of the two girls in the park. When we first brought mad's over, we thought we would give her a break from Lexi by taking lexi out for a walk for half an hour. But as we were walking out the door, Maddles started to bark at us! And now she comes for walks every day!



( In the Park )

Hello hello,

Hope everyone is well and you all enjoyed our last few posts of photo's.
Well we went and saw Pete Murray last night at the Fremantle Arts Centre and he was way cool!

Just wanted to let you know hahaa
Missin you Mum & Dad. We are having maddles for a little bit as you know. She is very happy. And asks to come for walks with Lexi everyday. Both the girls have had bath's today, and thanks to our visit to the Yallingup Cape Lavendar, they both smell very pretty! I also brushed Maddles teeth, and she doesn't hate me anywhere near as much as a i thought she would.

Just wanted to keep you up to date with everything.

Have fun on your journey, and i hope you two are playing nice!!!!!

xxx
Cett & Ellie

well it's 2009!
On New Years Eve, Dave & I played at the Ogden's Tavern in Gosnells.
And everyone came down! We didn't get many photo's of everyone else, so i might ask Laura if i can steal some from her....but anyways
After many margarita's and daiquiri's everyone had a fabulous night, and the next day Cett & I went to the beach with all of her family and played some cricket, went for a swim at Sorrento Beach and pretty much just lazed about (and i only got burnt a little bit!)

Enjoy
xx

( New Years Eve )

Well i know it's a bit late but i am finally find the time to upload some pic's of the last few weeks.
So as Mum and Neil are in Europe now, and they left before Christmas, we had Christmas dinner at their house before they left!
No problems with me! Early Presents!!!!
hahhaha
The guests included, Mum & Neil (of course), Cett & myself, Chris, Dave & Jackie (friends of cett & mine that we did our world trip with), Kurt (neil's son) and his fiance Sharon, Sean (neil's younger son) and his girlfriend Kylie and also Sharon's mum, as well as Aunty Delly.
So we had a lovely dinner and I've attached some photo's for you all to enjoy.

xx

( Christmas Dinner )

Well while I'm updating photo's...

It was Cett's birthday on Monday the 8th and as a birthday present i organize s surprise getaway for a week. I called her boss and spoke to every single person we know! And managed to keep it a secret from her for 2 whole months! I am so very proud of myself!
Anyways, so we went down south to Dunsborough and stayed at Quay West Bunker Bay Resort, if you go to the website you can probably get some better photo's of the lobby and stuff but i have to tell you it was absolutely gorgeous and just perfect for us!

We spent all week relaxing, visiting wineries and horse-riding, and on our last day went on a tour around Margaret River, Yallingup and up and down the cape. It was just perfect!

We are so relaxed now that we have come back and cett definately needed the holiday! So enjoy som of our happy snaps!

xxx

( Bunker Bay )

Hello to everyone!

Well we haven't posted anything in what seems like forever, but have been so busy with life and blah blah blah...

Anyways, a little while ago Mum and Neil got MARRIED! So we thought we would share some of the ceremony photo's we took with you all so you could share in the gorgeous day.
We started the day off early, heading to the hairdresser at 7am! Luckily she isn't that far away.
Then headed home in a mad rush to get changed as the limo and photograper had already arrived, we were whisked away to the ceremony in style, which was held at Harry Boas Park in Perth.

We had the ceremony and then some photo's at the park, and then headed back to Mum & Neil's house (Dad now i guess?) and had a great time with lots of drinks, canape's and a gorgeous cupcake wedding cake. Will try to put up some photo's of the reception for ya later.

xxx

( Fran & Neil's Wedding Day )

xxx

Helo Hello!

so we haven't posted anything for a while now, but i do still want to keep everyone updated on life in Oz.
So last i said i was back from Melbourne, and after many a bad day, stress, exhaustion and very low pay, have decided to move on from STA Travel. It just isn't what i want to do long term, and for the large amount of stress and the ridiculously low pay, I've decided it just isn't worth it.

So I'm still there for the moment, but i'm in the process of finding something else, I'll keep you posted.

Moving on, so by now mum is MARRIED!! The spring chicken! But for this post i wanted to share with you all her hen's night! We just had some close friends and family at our house for some drinks and fun games including pass the parcel, with a few cheeky prozes in between. And another game we had was the wedding gown designer! Where, in teams, you get toilet roll, garbage bags and tinsel to create you very own bride.
We also had margarita's and strawberry daiquiri's, and as prizes everyone got chocolate money, as were all worth a million bucks! and as the bride and groom met at school, everyone got a bottle of wine called 'Kiss Chasey'. All in all I would say the night was a complete success!

I'll send out photo's via email, as i'm sure mum doesn't want this stuff up on a completely public website for all her students to gain access to!

If you want some photo's, just email me and let me know
ciao bella's
xxx

So yay I am back!

Melbourne was great fun, kind of like doing a little Contiki Tour and meeting all these great people somewhere out in the world, and then going home again.

I'll post some photo's soon, but the set up was pretty cool. There was 15 of us training at the STA Travel Head office in melbourne in total.
4 from Perth, Gold Coast, Brisbane, New Zealand, Sydney, and a couple from Melbourne too. All of us from out of town, stayed at these really nice serviced apartments only a 5 minute bus trip to work, and maybe 20 minute tram ride into the city, so that was pretty cool.

My little house had Jess from the Gold Coast and Matt from Bris-vegas. Both really nice amazing people, so glad to have met them as they were the best housemates i could have hoped for, and Jess even ate gluten free! so that was cool as well.
I also made good friends with Jess from Sydney (yes another jess, they even had the same shoes, hats, jumpers and hair colour-CREEPY!) This Jess was from America or at least has been living there for the last 8 years acting and has some fabulous gossip stories to tell. :)
And Fiona from New Zealand was great fun too. we have all facebooked eachother so we can keep in touch.
Mostly my roomies and I obviously went to training which was a complete brain overload, I've been working in the store for the last week and it still makes almost no sense! but otherthan that we went to the Art Gallery, Saw the Footy! at the MCG which is just huge! and travelled around St Kilda, Hawthorn, Melbourne Central City and Kew as well as which is where we were staying. It was great fun, but i am glad to be home.

Lexi was spayed the other day and is not resting at all! kinda hard to make her. :) hopefully she isn't doing too much damage to her insides. they seem okay so far. other than that, not too much to report, I'm sure i will remember something once this is posted!

haha
but for now, i'll add photo's later

ciao

Well the wait is nearly over - only a few days to go and Ellie will be back from Melbourne - YAY! I can't wait to see her. Well not that I haven't enjoyed my time whilst she has been away. Have been doing the usual work and home stuff but also had some lovely dinners with family and friends. On the weekend just gone I went down to Molloy Island which is down South of Perth, about a 3.5 hour drive. It was nice to relax and visit a place I haven't been to in a while. I have attached some pics below, just to give you a general idea of the place. It is very beautiful.

On the home front, have been taking Lexi for walks when I can and looking after the girls. Also have had a good time chilling with Hedge and got to have my first FPS gaming experience with Call of Duty 4. I must admit is is a brilliant game, however was very full on. Also tried out Gears of War to no avail. I have decided to take it one game at a time :-)

All in all everything has continued and has been good.. but... I still miss my girl and am looking forward to having her home.

That's it from me.

Cett


( Molloy )

So sorry this is so late posting, have had to steal (legally I'm sure) some photo's from other people as our camera died when we got there. must remember to charge battery next time, In our defense, we had spent weeks organizing all the decorations, helium balloons (which are bloody expensive if i do say so myself!), music, set lists, performing for mum, cups, saucers, spoons, ribbons, easel's and the list goes on. It was a great night had by all and well worth it. So here are all the photo's of the night. Props to Chubs, Laura and Lauren for the use of their photo's. Hope you don't mind guys. You took some awesome shots :)

Enjoy

( Ma's 50th Birthday Bash! )

Hello to you all,

Well we have been back for coming up to a month soon, and have recovered (slightly) from the holiday blues.
It was tough for a bit there as to be expected and coming to home both cars broken, a sheeit load of bills (and i mean almost $1000 worth) and work was not a fun experience.

But now we are looking to the future to make changes and improve and not go back to the rut we were in before leaving, as otherwise what was the point in going in the first place!

My little Lexi got big! She has supermodel legs now. and is picking up her training where we left off, albeit a few steps back but is catching up slowly.
Both Abigail and Bella are doing well. Bella is recovering with an abscess but its not infected so she is alright.

It was mum's birthday on Wednesday and tonight is the big do. So in a few hours we will drive down and set up all the decorations, music and anything else that needs doing. Will post some photo's of that tomorrow.
Other than that, we are just gettin through the days and planning our next big trip....were thinking Japan next April?? :)


( home )

Some more phuket photos for you all.

( more Phuket photos for you enjoyment )

Hello all!

So as you know we didn't do much but swim, sunbake and drink pino colada's!
But here are some photo's of our hotel resort.
It's called the Merlin Beach Resort in Phuket if you wanna google it, they might have some good photos from the air or something.
But it has 3 pools, and 3 restaurants as well.
There is the main pool with a bar you can swim up to. The kids pool is conected through a tunnel with water fountains you swim under. and there is another pool that our room looked out onto, and the people below us have direct access from their balcony to this pool, so its kinda the quiet relaxing pool.

Enjoy the photos!!!



( pretty phuket )

Well we have now returned home. Unfortunately we were unable to access the internet at a decent price in Phuket so we could not update you all with our Thai adventures. Not that it really involved much apart from shopping, bartering, swimming, sun baking, getting massages (of the non-sexual kind!) and taking rides in tuk-tuk's, one of the ways that you can travel to and from the towns around Phuket.

Shopping was definitely interesting, as each stall you passed they attempted to coax you into their shop to buy. Even though at times this became some what of an annoyance, we knew that this was their livelihood and managed to keep our sanity for the time that we were there. It was a great experience and opened our eyes on the reliance of tourism in Phuket.

I must admit that Thailand is a place that I would like to explore a little further, maybe take some roads less traveled and explore the Thai culture more. However, I must comment that the Thai have impeccable attention to detail, and some of their creations and carvings are absolutely amazing - whether they are born from wood, wax or food. It does take a while to get into the flow of things, some of the smells (some you can't get used to), but it is an interesting place and as white foreigners (falang in thai)sometimes we don't see the issues faced by some of the people that live here and their exploitation.

Overall, it was nice to have the week to begin to relax to get us in the frame of mind that we were now ending this great adventure, however by no means is it the last!

I will update again with my thoughts and overview of the trip in general.

Ciao for now
Cett xx

Hello all,

Sorry can't update photos of phuket just yet. Were at an irish pub (hahah i know) in phuket listening to Illy one of d & j's friends from queensland play in his band. Just using their free internet. He lives here now so that's cool, its very interesting to see the thai take on an irish pub! not very irish but nice non the less.

Well the flight over here was a bitch! an hour and a half to london, then 10 and a half hours to bangkok, then another hour to phuket where it is very very very very very very humid! Nah it's not that bad but beautiful in the pool. Sipping margheritas and pina colada's! (i know you can hit me next week ya jealous buggers!
haha

The hotel is absolutely beautiful as i said, very tropical and resort looking. And the people are lovely.
Missing you all looking forward to coming home but at the same time not wanting to leave and go back to the routine of life. :(
Ah well all holidays must come to an end unfortunately. At least I, unlike cett don't have work on monday!
So we are not doing much but chilling and swimming and drinking at the moment. Headed into town tonight and saw a few markets but being the late arvo they weren't open yet. and ya got sick of the "you buy you buy!!" just walking past the shop so we will do more of that tomorrow.

Will head off and listen, luv to you all. Will try to post photos from the hotel. We have internet somewhere but i don't know where in the hotel it is yet! it's quite big with 3 pools and quite a few little areas so will try in the next few days, if not you can see em next week.

Ciao bella and sending luv and hugs
xxxx
See you next week, will try to

Well we are off to Dublin today, so we took a whole bunch of photos. Mostly of Paul and the boys and of our drive. We saw a few castles and stopped at Kinnitty Castle as well.

So here are some great photos for ya all
enjoy!

( Leaving Roscrea )

Ahhh, sorry this takes a bit longer to upload. But we are just having too much fun gallivanting around the place to take time off to upload stuffs.

Well our flight to Ireland was crap, putting it simply. On our travel pack we had the departure time as 9am. Which means we have to be at Heathrow at 7am (and just to be safe as it is Heathrow, probably before 7). When we got there, our flight wasn't scheduled to leave til half 10! so we arrived just before 7 and had to wait til half 10 to get on the plane which was only in a little terminal right next to us as it just goes to Ireland. to that was our crap flight. Thanks god it was only about a 50 minute flight so it was thankfully over soon.

So anyway, once we landed we organised and picked up our rental car. A cute little Nissan Note and its bright blue. We ended up going through budget as we talked them down in price and got unlimited mileage, sat nav, fully comprehensive insurance and a full tank of petrol for 8 days and it was only $400 australian. I think that's pretty good. and the car is brand new so it all worked out alright.
So we drove 2 hours through pretty good traffic and suprised Val (my lovely aunty who gave up her bed for us transients!) at work. And of course Andy was there as well coz its really her job and val just joined in a few years ago :)

Gave them both big hugs, introduced cett did some lunch shopping at Tesco and we were off to the house to get settled in and see Katie!
We rocked up, knocked on the door and my Nanna Kit opened the door, hugged me and then hit me a few times because my hair wasn't its natural colour!
With all that out of the way, we made some lunch and by then Val was home and we took all the dogs out for their walk.

So without boring everybody too much, we pretty much relaxed and rested, recovered and spent time with family whilst in Roscrea. We visited Monaincha, Roscrea Church, Golden Grove, Birr Castle, The Monastry, Leap Castle and went for lunch at this great (very busy) little place called Thatch. It's a little old converted house with an old style Thatch Roof.
So with all these fabulous places visited we will just put up lots of photos because i know that's what you all want to see anyways ha ha
Big hugs and kisses for Val and Andy for looking after us and taking us to all these great places, it was very much appreciated and we shall definitely be stealing your bed again Val if the chance presents itself!


( Roscrea Days )

So it is very late and we still have to pack, but we get up at 4am tomorrow!
Have to be at the 'mother' hotel Best Western a few houses down the road to check out and catch the Shuttle to Heathrow-this leaves at 5.30am. Get to airport, have breakfast among other things. and our flight leaves around 9am.

The flight is only about an hour so that's cool, then we drive to roscrea and possibly see some sights on the way there.

Will catch up and fill u in soon.

Happy days to you all.
2 weeks and were home!!! My god that has come quick.

ciao bellas
Ellie & Cett
xxx

Well hello!

we have been in london for the last few days and it has just been a blur of sights, sounds and attractions!
So were doing one post and a whole bunch of photo's all at once! We have basically walked all over London and can't remember what we did each day looking back now hhaha
We have used the tube, which is a lot cleaner than New York that's for sure. But
you just start walking to see something, and then something else is not far away and then you reach it, and there's is something just past that too. So we have walked pretty much all over london in 3 days! and let me tell you we are absolutely exhausted! Tonight we just made it home before collapsing in the hotel room. It will be very nice to be sitting on my bootie for a few hours at a time driving to places in Ireland, that's for sure!
We also got to see Iron Man at the massive Odeon cinema, in Leicester Square. which is a 2 tiered theatre with a big movie screen put in it. The movie was amazing so i would suggest you all go see it.


So anyways, we have seen pretty much all the sights so i will just post lots of photos of everything we have seen and you can check it out!

ciao
Cett & Ellie

( Our time in London )

Hi Everyone :-)

Just a quick post for now to let you know that we have finally been able to add photos to our Washington part of the trip.

Others are coming so watch this space!

Ciao
Cett & Ellie

Well for the last few days we have been relaxing and taking in the splendour that is England!
Well we went to Quarry Bank Mill. It’s lovely. It’s basically an old textile mill and a beautiful secret garden that is part of the National Trust, and you an do tours of the Mill and learn how they use to make cotton and all the old machinery and looms. It’s really quite interesting, and luckily we got some really good weather for it.

Unfortunately you can’t take photos inside the mill, so you will all just have to go and visit it for yourselves! We did get some great photos of the secret garden though.
So other than visiting gardens and mill, shopping at Trafford Centre and trying on sooo many shoes (beautiful and hideous alike just for the fun of it) all we have really been doing is relaxing, playing with billie in the garden and eating lots of yummy organic vegetables! Much better than fries, I can tell you that!
Nuala did take us on a drive of stockport and its surrounds. I'm not quite sure where we went exactly but it was all very beautiful and landscap-y.
We went to the top of this huge hill that had sheep on it, and people normally do hang-gliding off the top, no one today though.

Missing you all. We head to London on the bus Sunday, 4 hours so not too bad.
And we have found a hotel right near Victoria Station so yay!

Ciao
xxx

( Quarry Bank Mill )


( The drive around Mellor )

Got up a bit early today.
Billie, Ruth’s beautiful boxer was over for a playdate/babysit at Nanna and Pop’s for the day. So I spent much of the morning out playing ball and fetch (kinda-as she does not really bring it back) with Billie out in the big backyard!
After we were all showered and dressed and had pottered and done enough jobs to feel all right about leaving, we headed out.
Firstly off to do some errands and drop a few things off and pick a few things up.
Then we headed to Trafford Centre. Which is about half an hour’s drive from Nuala’s house. It is basically a giant shopping mega-mart but very expensive and classy. Mostly they have clothes and shoes and sports stores, as well as games stores and a Mac store. But the big food hall is set up as a ship! Very strange and for no reason in particular. But there is a big captains quarter that has a giant TV on it. All the chairs in the dining areas are one’s you would find on a boats sun deck. And the banisters are all the same. It’s really quite weird. But the best thing is the ceiling is painted in sky and clouds, but they have dimmer lights and every now and again they dim everything and it’s night time and little twinkly lights appear on the ceiling as well! Very cool and completely over the top.
So we spent a good few hours here not buying much but trying on lots of shoes! Then headed to Sainsbury to organise dinner.
When we got home, Cett & I went for a walk around Nuala and Peter's house up and around the hill, to the top where the church is, and despite going through 2 of what was possibly the wrong fields...we managed not to get eaten by any cows or horses! So all in all i think it was a success!
So we got back and decided on dinner. I thought it would be nice to have a nice pasta dish with all fresh veggies and herbs, so I made all dinner with a nice bit of help from Nuala. It was delish! It all worked out really well, so I’m happy. With yoghurt/rice pudding and fresh raspberry’s for dessert, we are now all sufficiently stuffed and ready for an episode of dirty sexy money!

Goodnight all, sorry bout photo’s but will try and keep more update with journaling in the next week.

Ciao
xxx

( Mellor Days )

Well alright, i feel the need to blame jet lag and feel i sufficiently can, so i woke up at lunchtime today. Cett was up at 7am, out in the sun taking photos on her walk! hha
We all had planned to go and see and do things today, but basically just lazed about the house, talked, watched some tv, made lunch, talked on the phone to mum for a good few hours and then she was passed around the group!
Ruth and Anna came over tonight with their gorgeous dogs Tom and Billie. Tom is an older 8yr old Collie. Black and White, and will be anybody's for cuddles. Billie is a beautiful boxer who is much like lexi in the energy department but much mich bigger! So she is very excited all the time and tom does well to keep up with her playing out in the backyard.
We all had dinner together and have made some plans for tomorrow, and now i sit up at 3am for all of you at home (because i love you so very much) trying desperately to catch up on live journaling which we now haven't done since our last day in new york.

I'm really quite tired but will add photo's to these posts tomorrow as we have so many and they take a while to load.

I'm off to bed for a few hours before getting up again.

gnite!

xxx

( Mellor and the surrounds )

Well today we leave for the UK, and have packed up everything yet again. We all left the hotel in a taxi debating over cost and some differing opinions from the hotel staff, but we got there in the end. It's about an hours drive to Washington Dulles airport, but not too bad of a ride.
We got to the airport a few hours earlt just in case of que's, checked everything in, went through all the security of taking of everything until your just above naked! which i must add we are getting very good at by now!

The flight was just over 7 hours, but was over night, so with time changes and all, we left the us at 6pm and arrived in the uk around 7am very strange. but i didn't really sleep and cett had minimal sleep, but lovely Louise picked us all up in her car, and considering it was heathrow were all very happy to be in and out within about 40 minutes so that was wonderfully unheard of.
We then had about a 45 minute drive to Banbury station where we bought tickets to Stockport near Nuala's. That was a 2 and half hour train trip, but luckily we only waited for 25 minutes to catch it. The the lovely Nuala picked us up from the train station, we went to sainsbury's for much neede supplies of lunch and headed to Mellor, which is about maybe 30 minutes away?

so all in all we didn't sleep for about 20 hours! So much fun you should all really try it just to see what happens! NOT.
Got to Nuala's home which is just beautiful! and had some lunch, talked an awful lot, had dinner caught up on everything then we all went to bed!

So lots of travelling but great fun as well.

xxx

Just uploading pics of New York we got off Dave and Jackie or have forgotten to add

luv you all
xxx

( New York from Dave & Jackie )

So we did sleep in a little today, but only til about half 9, then went down stairs for breakfast which was an okay buffet. Finished that off and thought we had better go and see some things while we can!
We started walking down, and unfortunately today was a bit cold and rainy, mostly drizzle but occasionally it would get heavier. First we headed back to the White House to take some photo's during the day, and this place really isn't as big as you would think. We are only about 30-40 metre's from the front door. But the road is now blocked off to traffic, and there are noticeably no bins anywhere near the place, as well as a couple cop cars and police roaming around. There is also a protesting station set up regarding nuclear weapons and they have been there since the 80's!
So next door to hear is a beautiful old building which is actually the Executive Offices, and the other side is the treasury building.
Walking past those, you hit the Washington monument again and took some daylight photos, and moved towards capitol hill which you can see a few km's off in the distance. First place we visited was the natural history museum (i think that was what it was called anyways). This place is filled with dinosaur bones, and lots of stuffed animals, which normally i don't like but they were set up in some great "frozen" action scenes. There was also an exhibit of lots of amazing photos that had won prizes in this international photography contest.
So we took a lot of pics here.
We then headed across the road to a sculpture garden, which was beautiful and very strange all at the same time.
Next up was the Art Museum, which is just enormous, but to my delight housed a whole heap of original impressionist paintings! most of which is had studied in high school for 2 years. Monet, Degas, Matisse and Seurat to name a few. so that was amazing and they let you take photos crazy people that they are so i took lots!
If you keep walking around the park/circle you get to capitol hill. But after so much walking already done, and the amount we knew we had left to do! we didn't climb the stairs as we couldn't really be stuffed. But it is an amazing building and one day...
So we keep walking around again, and next up is the Smithsonian Institute. Which is actually made up of about 6 separate museums for Indian history, American war history, holocaust museum and another was the air and space museum, so we ventured into that one.
Absolutely insane, as they have all the actual space modules that buzz Aldrin and those guys went to the moon in, and you can see the marks on the base made from returning into the atmosphere! They also had full size rockets! and so many huge planes hanging from the ceiling. You could also walk into or stand next to half a jumbo jet or an airbus! it's just awesome.

so after we were sufficiently spaced out (sorry bad pun i know), We headed across the road to the National Archive Building and got to see the ACTUAL Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution! You can't use a flash and the room is also in darkness to protect the pages from uv rays, but really that is understandable as they were written in 1776 and as is you can barely see the words written on it! but it really was quite amazing.
They have the declaration of independence engraved exactly as the original (same font and everything) on the inside of the elevator doors which are gold!
We also saw in the archives a piece of paper that would be worth billions!! It is a telephone conversation scripted out between the moon astronauts buzz and the president of the time, the stamp on it and the ink used to date mark it, all went to the moon with the astronauts!! how cool is that
We headed outside as by now had been walking for about 7 hours! and headed home passing some beautiful trees and hotels. I saw some huge doors with giant big knockers on the front, and was very tempted to run and up knock then run away...until we noticed it was the department of justice! hahha

It really was a jam packed day but after 7 and a half hours of non-stop walking it was worth it see so much

off to rest you feet
ciao lovely's

( Hotel Stuff )

( Out & About in Washington )

( The White House )

( Walkin in Washington )

( The American Natural History Museum )

( The Sculpture Garden & Art Gallery )

( Capitol Hill )

( The National Air & Space Museum )

( The National Archive Building )

Well today we spent all day basically getting to washington! We left the hotel around half 8 in the morning, and caught a taxi to Madison Square Gardens, well not quite. Across the road was the stop for our bus down to the political capital of the world.
So we waited for about 40 minutes and had some starbucks (obviously) while we waited for the bus. Booking it on the internet we were all a little hesitant of what to expect and how good/old/great or decrepit it would be!
We only paid $22 per person and greyhound buses are $39 per person, so we were more than pleasantly suprised when a brand new 2008, $580,000 bus rolled up next to us.
We had a lovely lady helping us check in so to speak, and our bus driver Alvin (a huge african american guy) was absolutely lovely! He was very friendly and sarcastic so sat in well with us all. He talked us through the trip and how long it would be (4 hours) as well as the facilities that were on board. We had music and a selection of movies to choose from to watch, first of Ratattouille was chosen, as the bus was no where near full and we basically were told this is a "whatever" kind of bus.
Alvin also instructed us that the lavatories were in the back of the truck and that they were only for liquids, "coffe NO doughnuts" was the phrase he decided to use!
So i slept through most of the first 2 hours and then we had a pitstop for 20 minutes to pick up lunch and stretch our legs.
Back on the bus after much debate over if anyone would be offended, the group chose Borat#s khazekstan movie. Alvin assured us that if anyone was seriously offended he would turn it off, but not to worry as it was "equally offensive to all races and stereotypes, and were in this together".
Towards the end of the movie when it got a bit too much (if you have seen it it's the naked part with the 2 guys), Alvin clicked to the next scene and apologised saying it was a bit too much for a family orientated bus. A few people boo'd (including Dave), so he replied with "if you really do like that scene maybe you need to have some help, and get yourself looked at??"
So all in all our bus trip was quite funny and the time passed quite fast as well.
So we reached Washington around half 2 or 3, and as he wanted to try out his new GPS thing, Alvin put in our hotel address and dropped us off right outside the front door of our hotel! granted it was the other side of the round about that he had pulled over on to begin with, but he even helped us with our bags! I would definately recommend using this bus to anyone. It was great.

So we got into our hotel, checked in and headed to our separate rooms. And the room was the nicest we have had yet. It was very classy and clean and friendly as well. We got all our things settled in and an hour or 2 later meeted up and headed to a grill across the road that was quite nice, then headed down town for some sightseeing!
Stopped along the way and got Krispy Kremes for everyone else and Ellie had hot chocolate.
It was dark, but knowing we had not much time here and a lot to see we wanted to get as much in as we could.
Washington is set up very well though, you can basically start at one monument, walked around in a big circle and see most monuments, big museums, art galleries and bureua's of everything.
First stop was the white house, which really isn't all that big. Next doort is the Treasury Department, and then the executive offices. Further down the hill is the big obelisk the washington memorial, and then to it's right is the World War 2 memorial, The refecting pond (the one is forest gump) and the lincoln memorial.
We also saw a cute momma duck with all the babies sleeping under her, and a building that was half way through being demolished that looked rather cool. It was right in the middle of the city!
So we really did get to see quite a bit, and as there was lots of people around also being tourists, it was quite safe as well. Unfortunately, it was starting to rain so we had to catch a taxi back to the hotel and have a relatively early first night.

But all in all a great first night i would say.
A word of warning though, taxi's in washington go by zone, so they don't have meter's in the cab and if you drive 3 minutes down the road, you can be charged as much as 20 minutes down the road if they are within the same zone!

Night night all, will be lots of pic's tomorrow of most of washington if all goes to plan.

ciao
Cett & Ellie
xxx

( The beginnings of Washington )

New York Day 6

We set out a little earlier today to cram as much as we could into our last day in NYC. We were going to catch the Statten Island ferry to be able to see the Statue of Liberty close up but given the weather we decided to give it a miss and do a few other things instead.

Greenwich Village was our first destination. Apparently, “The Village” as it is so called has been a Mecca to the creative, rebellious and Bohemian for over 100 years. It has a great vibe and we really enjoyed the walk through the cobbled streets and popping into the boutique stores. As we were walking through we decided to head to Katz’s Deli which is famous for being a traditional NY Deli, and also where Harry met Sally in the movie. We arrived and it was extremely busy, also the menu was limited in terms of gluten free foods, but the food did look nice. Ellie and I agreed that we would explore the area and look for something else. This is when we came across a great little restaurant called The Spring Natural Food and we had an organic grilled chicken taco salad – it was awesome and we loved it – fresh food at last!

Close by is also Soho, Noho and Little Italy. Today was just the day for walking and exploring the streets and that’s basically what we did. It was great just to take the time to see a different, less touristy part of New York, without all the flashy lights and in your face signs. After lunch we decided to head to Magnolia’s Bakery which is famous for its cake and cupcakes of course. Once we arrived there, there was a bit of a cue, but it was moving fast so we decided to be patient and it was well worth the wait! I purchased 2 cupcakes and a piece of red velvet cake and Ellie had flourless chocolate cake which was fantastic as we weren’t too sure whether she would find anything. Once cakes were purchased we made our way down to Central Park.

Central Park is just an amazing place and we have grown to love it in the few days that we were in New York. It is a very surreal place and considering New York City is generally crazy, it is nice to have somewhere to relax and watch the world go by. In terms of history Central Park was a Dairy Farm in the 1800’s at which time it was donated to the government to turn it into a park. It covers 843 acres, which apparently is 6% of Manhattan. We found a little spot and decided to eat our cake here (zia especially for you!). After overindulging we decided to get a horse and carriage ride through the park and that was nice, with our carriage driver pointing out where movies had been shot and also where some of the stars live within the area so that was interesting – his name was Gino and the horse was called Whisky. Gino apparently has been doing the horse rides for 15 years. After the ride Ellie got to feed Whisky a carrot and we were off.

Looking for something for dinner we decided to grab Pizza. Yes Ellie was naughty and couldn’t resist so we both had a giant slice of NY Pizza – I had cheese and Ellie had pepperoni. It was mighty good and will be remembered for times to come. Afterwards we went for a walk and decided to get a Jamba Juice – basically a juice bar and headed home to pack.

All up it was a great day of lots and lots of walking, but it was a nice way to end our stay in NYC. We loved it here and definitely will be back.

Signing off

Ellie & Cett

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

( Day 6 in New York City )

So we managed to surface a little earlier today and ended up going to Pop Diner for breakfast which is just up from the hotel… the fact that we are having breakfast stipulates that it was an earlier start!

Ellie and I shared an omelette that came with potatoes and toast and something else. It was pretty big so was enough for both of us. Unfortunately, at this point Ellie wasn’t feeling the best so we returned to the hotel to rest, and didn’t end up leaving until about 2:30-3pm. As we were departing NYC for Washington DC in a few days we needed to organise transportation to get there so we headed to Penn Station to research a little. Whilst there we saw Madison Square Garden where some of the greats have played. No luck at Penn we made our way to the Port Bus Authority, that was a maze itself! We did end up finding a bus that takes us to Washington DC, however we had researched a little earlier on the net and knew we could get a better deal.

Once we sorted out transportation to Washington DC we just walked around and took it all in. We ended up meeting up with Mike for Dinner in the Village. Whilst we were waiting, we spent some time at the Dog Park. It was a very cute setting as all the puppies could socialise in the one area, it was all blocked off so that they could run free without leads. The bigger dogs had a different area to play and it was larger in size. Whilst we were there we saw the biggest 2 great danes ever – they were the size of a pony, if not slightly larger – absolutely huge!

Unfortunately we were starving and Mike was a few hours away so we decided to catch up for dessert instead. We ended up having Thai food for dinner just for something different and it was really yummy and also nice to have some vegetables and no fries.

Mike then caught up with us and took us to this really sweet Italian place it was really lovely and all the tables were only lit up by candlelight which made it difficult to see the menu, however cell phones where used to light it up! It was great as they also had a jazz band playing, we enjoyed it. Then off to the subway to head home – ended up getting home and to bed around 2am.

Overall it was a good day.

Ciao for now.

Ellie & Cett

xxxxxxx

( Day 5 in New York City )

On a completely different note..

We are now on the bus travelling from NYC to Washington DC, yes as I write this! I just wanted to rejoice in the fact that we can access the net from the bus and the wonder that the wireless world is.

That is all really.

Ciao
Cett

So we left the hotel around half 11 (getting better?)
Headed to Times Square and got lunch at a singing diner! It’s called stardust, and the waiters and waitresses take turns in singing to you. They all dress up 50’s style with the big poofy skirts with poodles on the side. It’s awesome.
And I got an alcoholic milkshake! It was chocolate and baileys and kahlua. Yum yum yum!
So after lunch we headed down to the subway, where we caught a train to City hall for some photos of all the cherry blossoms and the buildings and also the court building. We saw a cute squirrel along the way too. Haha
After we were done here, the 4 of us headed to ground zero as it was close by and Dave and Jackie hadn’t seen it yet. Plus Cett & I saw some things we hadn’t seen last time so we took more photos of the fire station across the road and the memorial they have set up, It’s very surreal.
We kept on walking towards the Hudson and saw Battery Park, Jersey across the river and The Statue of Liberty from a distance. It was a pretty long walk as we got all the way from the financial buildings to the ferries. All in all about an hour of walking.

By the time we got down there it was too late for a ferry to Ellis Island to see a lady liberty so we will have to go tomorrow. The park was full of people today though. Lots of dogs and people walking and quite a few Jewish families too. I’m not sure whether there was something on. But a lady asked us which way the Jewish natural heritage museum was (not far and we had a map so we told her) and every second person was Jewish. So it was very surreal, as we don’t really have that in Australia.

But we decided to catch another train up to town, as the ferries were no longer going. And we got up to the top of the Empire State Building! And jeebus what an amazing view. By now the sun was just setting so we got some amazing shots of the sun going down over jersey! But we were 86 stories up and looking down was just beautiful. It didn’t take as long as we all thought though. As normally you would need to allocate an hour or 2 just to line up. We were really lucky that it wasn’t busy and all in all lining up, getting to the top, taking photos and coming down was over in about an hour. So we were very impressed. Especially considering the line was out the door and down the street when we came out!

Earlier Jackie and I had made a tentative (I mean we asked about a time and she said come back) booking to get our nails re done, as both of us were in desperate need of manicures for our acrylics. There was a little place across the street from the empire so we asked in there and decided it was easier than going back uptown for our already late appointment. So we had them done here then headed back up to Times Square for dinner!
We hit the Hard Rock Café and after Nacho’s for the girls and steak for Dave, he got a hot fudge sundae! (Coz he hasn’t been eating enough of those since we got here!)
But the first one they brought out was pitiful! It had barely a scraping of hot fudge on it…and the fudge wasn’t even warm! So we asked the waiter to bring us out one that was good and …well you can check out the photos. Needless to say Dave was happy, we all had hot fudge and ice cream and headed home for bed!

Happily Ever After
The End.


Hahha
Xxx Cett & Ellie



( Day 4 in New York City )

Hi Mandy,

Happy 21st Birthday. We hope that you had a great day and are sending birthday wishes from across the other side of the world. As promised Ellie had a drink for you!!


( Mandy's Birthday Drink )

Lots of Love

Ellie & Cett

xxxxxx

So (coz were lazy and again went to bed at 2am! We left the hotel around 2pm,
And headed towards the subway and jumped off at Lexington Avenue!
Got some lunch at a little place up the street, next to Bloomingdales. I got a chicken soup (really yum) and Cett got an eggplant salad, very nice as well. We headed up Lexington and did a little shopping and by now it was just after 4pm, so we found a pay phone and gave Chub’s friend Mike a call.
Turns out he works not far from where we were so he met up with us and took us for a walk around the city!
We walked (from what I can remember) to Madison Square Park then to Union Square, and across the road to this amazing chocolate shop called Max Brenner.
Now they have absolutely EVERYTHING chocolate that you can think of! I love it and I want to live there! They have chocolate bars, hot chocolate, choc bagels, sundaes, waffles and more! I had a chocolate hazelnut granita and Mike and Cett had chocolate and peanut butter bagels. And dam it was good! And so chocolaty!
Next we hit Washington square park, where they have actually moved a whole big fountain as it wasn’t centred under the arc de triumph they have, so they have blocked off a whole area to move it a few metre’s over! Crazy I know, but it wasn’t symmetrical and they aren’t happy so hey what’s a few million to move a fountain?

So it was here we met Danny (another Chub’s friend we have stolen!) and headed to Astor place where they have a giant Cube that you can spin around in the middle of the street. Then we got in the car and headed to ground zero, and saw it from a whole other angle and walked inside the financial centre, to see some huge palms trees in the lobby! Very cool, they grow really well inside apparently.
So we took a drive up or possibly down town (I forget) and got to Rockefeller Centre, which is just beautiful at night. So we headed up to the top, and took some amazing photos of the whole of New York. It was really cold but it’s just gorgeous up there.
And when your on the way out, there is this crazy room that has heaps of flashy seizure lights in it, and they’re suppose to follow you around the room, but we think it was broken so they flashed heaps. Very trippy.
So we might do the Empire during the day and that way we have seen it both night and day!
By now we were pretty hungry, and after the thought of pizza (as we couldn’t find a good one) flew out the window, we headed into Times Square and found Brooklyn diner. Was really great food and very nice atmosphere. So burgers, herbed Cuban chicken and chicken parmiagana went down really well, Mike and Danny were sooooo nice and dropped us back at the hotel!!!
What more could you want in a free tour guide! haha

All in all a great day, and much thanks to our fabulous tour guides Mike and Danny.

Cheers guys
Cett & Ellie
xxx

( Day 3 of New York City )

So with every intention of getting up early and….slept in again!
I know, I know…but in our defence we didn’t get to sleep until after 2am!

Well anyways we ended up leaving the hotel around half 11 or midday. Something like that.

So we caught the subway back into New York and headed into Times Square for lunch at Applebee’s. It’s a really nice restaurant that we found in a NYC book.
Cett ended up getting a snack combo, which is tomato basil soup (really yummy) and 2 mini bbq chicken burgers with bacon and cheese! Very cute. I ended up getting a really tasty grilled garlic herb chicken with roast potatoes and broccoli. Very fresh and very yum!
So now that we were all full up we headed up 42nd street back to Bryant Park for some photos and a nice walk. We walked around and on the other side of the park in the New York City Library. Back inside it was toasty warm (as did I mention it is pretty darn cold here, about 12 degrees to be exact). So we took some more photos of the beautiful ornate ceilings, door’s and books. It’s like being in a movie, just amazing and everything is so big! It’s just insane.
Anyways we left the library and, made our way down 5th avenue again. So many pretty things to buy and spend on. There is a side street off 5th and pretty much every store (no kidding) is a jewellery store, or a jewellery exchange store! We both felt a little too much like fresh meat, with all the “can I help you?” and ‘who are you buying for?’ so we left.
We ended up finding Rockefeller Centre! We had walked right past it yesterday without even realising! So we walked down and found a chocolatier and bought some chocolate to die for! Kind of like chokeby road Very small and cute, and quite expensive so we bought 6 pieces for $11! Took some great photos, but they had the ice-rink part covered up and were working on it, so we couldn’t get a good shot of the golden angel. Sorry.
Kept walking and saw Central Park! Took a heap of photo’s of all the horse and carriages, as well as the statues and buildings surrounding it.
We chose a different walk today, as we have pretty much covered most of what we did yesterday. So today we headed a little deeper in to the forest that is Central Park. And let me tell you it just gets better! There are so many little walkways and parks and ponds and trees and best of all SQUIRRELS!
No kidding these little dudes are jumpin around all over the place! And they’re so very cute! They remind me of Lexi actually, no sense and full of beans. J
So we were in the park for an hour or two, and when we headed out we saw firstly a filming of Sesame Street! They had cordoned off a section of the park near a fountain and had a Muppet up and talking to some kids. And then as we were leaving we saw a photo shoot with a fashion model crossing the street near the times Warner building!

It was actually quite funny, as she had to walk across the road, whilst looking to her side and not at all where she was going. She had a camera guy on one side, hair and make-up fixer-upper on another, and 2 guys stopping traffic (who were very happy to use their horns, and did). Not to mention she was wearing not much at all on a cold windy day. Every time she got close to the edge of the crosswalk she would bolt to the edge out of the line of angry taxis and to her coat! It was great to watch! And she seemed to be laughing it off.
We went into the time Warner building and looked around for a bit.
Took some great photos of the fountain round a bout, and then took a subway train to Grand Central Station!
This place is great! And it’s huge. You kind of think that you just go down a flight of stairs and then there is the train station, but you actually have trains on top of trains on top of trains. And then under all that there is a whole underground shopping and food outlets part as well.
So we got some Mexican at a great place underground, then headed back up to the subways and took another train up to Times Square. The original plan was to get a slice of cheesecake from Carnegies. But we were too full of burrito, so that will have to wait until tomorrow.
So we got up to times square, and since we have a little fridge in this hotel, (oddly the more expensive Excalibur in Vegas didn’t even have a mini bar in the room?) we bought some water and juice and the best part-peanut butter m&m’s and I can eat them!!!
So we got that stuff and made our way back to the hotel. Upstairs and settled in for some internetting and watched some sex and the city on TV (saw some other places we could visit too!)

So that is all for today! Enjoy the photo’s ya’ll.
sorry ya get so use to people saying it here, I just wanted to join in tee hee hee)

Ciao
Cett & Ellie
xxx

( Our second day in New York City )

So with every intention of getting up early and….slept in again!
I know, I know…but in our defence we didn’t get to sleep until after 2am!

Well anyways we ended up leaving the hotel around half 11 or midday. Something like that.
So we caught the subway back into New York and headed into Times Square for lunch at Applebee’s. It’s a really nice restaurant that we found in a NYC book.
Cett ended up getting a snack combo, which is tomato basil soup (really yummy) and 2 mini bbq chicken burgers with bacon and cheese! Very cute. I ended up getting a really tasty grilled garlic herb chicken with roast potatoes and broccoli. Very fresh and very yum!
So now that we were all full up we headed up 42nd street back to Bryant Park for some photos and a nice walk. We walked around and on the other side of the park in the New York City Library. Back inside it was toasty warm (as did I mention it is pretty darn cold here, about 12 degrees to be exact). So we took some more photos of the beautiful ornate ceilings, door’s and books. It’s like being in a movie, just amazing and everything is so big! It’s just insane.
Anyways we left the library and, made our way down 5th avenue again. So many pretty things to buy and spend on. There is a side street off 5th and pretty much every store (no kidding) is a jewellery store, or a jewellery exchange store! We both felt a little too much like fresh meat, with all the “can I help you?” and ‘who are you buying for?’ so we left.
We ended up finding Rockefeller Centre! We had walked right past it yesterday without even realising! So we walked down and found a chocolatier and bought some chocolate to die for! Kind of like chokeby road Very small and cute, and quite expensive so we bought 6 pieces for $11! Took some great photos, but they had the ice-rink part covered up and were working on it, so we couldn’t get a good shot of the golden angel. Sorry.
Kept walking and saw Central Park! Took a heap of photo’s of all the horse and carriages, as well as the statues and buildings surrounding it.
We chose a different walk today, as we have pretty much covered most of what we did yesterday. So today we headed a little deeper in to the forest that is Central Park. And let me tell you it just gets better! There are so many little walkways and parks and ponds and trees and best of all SQUIRRELS!
No kidding these little dudes are jumpin around all over the place! And they’re so very cute! They remind me of Lexi actually, no sense and full of beans. J
So we were in the park for an hour or two, and when we headed out we saw firstly a filming of Sesame Street! They had cordoned off a section of the park near a fountain and had a Muppet up and talking to some kids. And then as we were leaving we saw a photo shoot with a fashion model crossing the street near the times Warner building!

It was actually quite funny, as she had to walk across the road, whilst looking to her side and not at all where she was going. She had a camera guy on one side, hair and make-up fixer-upper on another, and 2 guys stopping traffic (who were very happy to use their horns, and did). Not to mention she was wearing not much at all on a cold windy day. Every time she got close to the edge of the crosswalk she would bolt to the edge out of the line of angry taxis and to her coat! It was great to watch! And she seemed to be laughing it off.
We went into the time Warner building and looked around for a bit.
Took some great photos of the fountain round a bout, and then took a subway train to Grand Central Station!
This place is great! And it’s huge. You kind of think that you just go down a flight of stairs and then there is the train station, but you actually have trains on top of trains on top of trains. And then under all that there is a whole underground shopping and food outlets part as well.
So we got some Mexican at a great place underground, then headed back up to the subways and took another train up to Times Square. The original plan was to get a slice of cheesecake from Carnegies. But we were too full of burrito, so that will have to wait until tomorrow.
So we got up to times square, and since we have a little fridge in this hotel, (oddly the more expensive Excalibur in Vegas didn’t even have a mini bar in the room?) we bought some water and juice and the best part-peanut butter m&m’s and I can eat them!!!
So we got that stuff and made our way back to the hotel. Upstairs and settled in for some internetting and watched some sex and the city on TV (saw some other places we could visit too!)

So that is all for today! Enjoy the photo’s ya’ll.
sorry ya get so use to people saying it here, I just wanted to join in tee hee hee)

Ciao
Cett & Ellie
xxx

( Our second day in New York City )

Howdy all from the big apple!!!

Well today we slept in a lot..... didn't end up leaving the hotel until midday, but it was nice to have a lazy morning. Then we headed out to explore the big city. We are staying in queens, which means catching the subway into Times Square and the like... which is pretty standard as NYC is massive!

There is a reason why we never listen to me (Cett) when it comes to direction..... hmmmm.. i have lets say a lack of that kind of sense - and we ended up walking in the wrong direction for 20 minutes and landed ourselves in a less than desirable location.. anywho we rectified that rather quickly and managed the "cultural experience". After walking 20 minutes past our original starting point we managed to find the subway station and made our way to Times Square. The ride itself was rather interesting.. and at this point Ellie was wishing she had not watched as many horror films as she has which were based in NYC and the subway.. I was oblivious to all this (I don't do scary movies).

Well after a short enlightening ride, which at first felt like a lifetime, we arrived at 49th Street. We made our way up the stairs and surfaced to streets bustling with people, lots of bright lights and signs, new sounds and bad smells. It was an experience in itself and one that we will remember for times to come. We then decided to just walk around and see where we ended up. We walked through Bryant Park which was very quaint and has its own reading square where you can borrow books whilst you sit in the park and have a coffee - i thought this was cool. We also thought the sandwich place called 'wich craft was very clever.

Walking, more walking and more walking.. we stumbled across the New York City Public Library. This was an amazing place, really an art gallery and library all in one. The architecture was mind blowing and the sitting and reading areas were awesome...
definately a place we will be visiting later on for some photo's.

So after coming out of the library, we just headed down 5th avenue! which is full of great (and expensive) shops and boutiques. It's like another Rodeo drive with more attitude and less 'pretty for celebrities'. A lot more history that's for sure.
So after perusing in Tiffany's, Cartier and spending money we do not (yet) have, we saw TREES!
Central Park was just ahead, all the sights, sounds and smells of horse carriages, saxophone players and kids playing. There was beautiful dogs, people playing baseball, joggers, kids on swings and so much more.
It really does feel like we have jumped into Mary Poppins chalk drawings! The tree's are gorgeous and everything is very picturesque. It was a really surreal experience. And we only saw about 5% of it. This 'park' should be called a national park it's so big. Ah well more to explore during the week to come. But a horse and carriage ride is a must!
So by now we are getting a little thirsty, so we headed to starbucks for mocha and caramel frappacino's! Yum Yum Yum.

By now, we are all caffeined up, and headed back towards Times Square and took everything in a little more, as the first time ‘round was just overwhelming. Plus we added in a few more streets this time.
Back down to the subway and what seemed like a maze of tunnels going on forever, with about 4 flights of stairs down, and then down again!
We hopped on the E line. Which was a 10 minute ride to Ground Zero.
We hopped off right across the road from where the twin towers use to be, and boy is this hole in the ground HUGE!
I can’t imagine what the towers must have been like to look up at from this point.
The sheer size of the block could fit Carousel Shopping Centre in it with a bit to spare. At the moment they are building 4 new buildings to replace it with and they are suppose to be up and ready to go by 2012. So at the moment it’s a massive construction site with a lot of steel cables coming up out of the ground and concrete and men in hard hats. But you still get the impression it is a sacred site and they want to keep it that way. Which I think is nice. There are security signs up and you aren’t allowed to advertise anything or loiter on the surrounding roads. We will definitely post photos for you when we head back there later in the week.

By now it was getting dark, and being a Sunday in the financial district, there were not a lot of people around and we thought it best to head back to Times Square where there were A LOT of people…everywhere!
Went to a place called Roxy’s for dinner. We ended up sharing a chicken and beef plate with chips and onion rings and got cheesecake to go, as we were that full we couldn’t possibly fit anything more than a taste of our creamy strawberry cheesecake in. Walked back up to 42nd street subway and caught the train back to queens. It was about 9.30pm and we were at first a little hesitant catching the ‘oh so dodgy’ looking subway at night, but it turned out to be busier than when we first got on! So it was all fine. Back to the hotel…chilled and emailed…up to bed for Cheesecake!!!

Night everyone J

Cett & Ellie
xxx

( Our first few hours in NY-hotel room mostly )

So we thought we would get some last minute sightseeing in today.
But we slept in, surprise surprise. Well we went to bed at 2am last night, so we got up around 11 today.
Decided to go to the Mandalay Hotel Buffet for lunch, which we heard, was really good, and it was. Everything was so fresh and there was so much to choose from. Not only do you have your normal pasta, chicken beef stuff, they also have a whole seafood bar, Mexican food bar Chinese bar, dessert bar, drinks station and then fresh fruit and veggie’s as well. It was great, very filling and at about 20 bucks not bad value for what you could get. But we is only little so we don’t eat much.
After brekkie, we walked around the Mandalay and took some photos of all the crazy restaurants and just the casino in general is amazing, all the lights and designs are just beautiful.
So after we were done there, we caught the little monorail backup to our hotel and walked across the road to the MGM. And they have a lion enclosure, which is free to go see! So we went in and these two massive female lions were sleeping in top of the Perspex corridor they have made. So you can look straight up and they’re above you, t was just beautiful, so we stayed and took pictures and watch them sleep and then wake up and just be big versions of Abigail. Lick and yawn and stretch and jump around a bit. It was great to get so close.
Just up from there, is M & M world! 4 stories of everything m&m. they have games and a show and so much merchandise. It’s all so colourful it was awesome.
So we made the long trek down to the other end of the strip (about a 40 minute walk) and went in to the Wax Museum. Unfortunately we didn’t realise the camera battery was low, so I only got a few pics. So you won’t get to see all the cool stuff we did, like marry George Clooney, shake it with Beyonce, hang backwards off a rail with Britney and stir cookie mix with Lucille ball. You will just have to take our word for it!
So by now we are stuffed, and it’s about half 3, so we walked for a bit and then said stuff it, and caught a taxi from the Bellagio back to our hotel.
Chilled out for a bit, then caught up with Dave and Jackie for dinner at Dick’s Last Resort. Now as I said before, this place is hilarious and you actually pay for the rude wait staff and bad service. But in a good way.
So we rocked up, and the waiter guy, who is quite young with some tat’s (dressed in jeans and a t shirt) walks us over to a table, and literally throws paper and napkins at us, says the menu is behind you (it’s up on the wall) and walks off.
Come’s back in a bit and stares at my chest then asks for what we want to drink and says “yeah I was staring at them” as I adjust my top. Hilarious!
He takes our order, reading it back to us all wrong. Jackie got wine “red stuff” I got a Margherita “yeah that’s the stuff” Dave ordered coke “Pepsi” and cett got lemonade “lemon”, he started to give out more napkins and cett was playing back throwing them in the air as the floor was already covered by the time we got there, so he throws them back and they empty the entire container onto the floor. Again he walks off laughing at us, and returns moments later to take food orders and makes fun of what we order. Jackie asked what the pasta was, as the menu didn’t really describe what was in it. And the reply was “ you wanna know what pasta is? What is this your first day out?”
And when we ask fro tomato sauce on Dave’s burger he walks off laughing at the accent and the fact that we didn’t cal it ketchup, it’s just crazy, but it’s such a laugh and they do it in a nice way but still be rude. So as the night goes on he returns with hats made of butchers paper. Mine reads, “stop staring at my chest!” and Dave’s says “Accepting Hair donations” and there is a big hole ripped in the front for the donations. All in all great dinner.
Afterwards, Dave and Jackie has already got tickets to a comedy show at the Tropicana, so Cett and I tagged along, and it was well worth it. It was absolutely hilarious, we didn’t stop laughing throughout the whole show, and it was great
So to finish the day, we came home and relaxed and packed our bags as we leave early tomorrow morning, and won’t have time.

As for tomorrow, no journal entry’s as we leave the hotel at half 8 in the morning, fly to Chicago, to transfer to get to new York, and we don’t arrive in new York til ten at night, so not much to write about really!
Oh well small plus is the flight doesn’t leave til 11am; Jackie and Dave leave fro Memphis at 6am! So they have to be at he airport for 4, the poor buggers.

Will write again from the big apple!!!

Ciao

Cett & Ellie
xxx

( Our last day in Vegas )

Day 5

So today we had to return the car, so we got up fro lunch (you can’t be surprised by now) and had a buffet at the Excalibur, very nice.
Then the 4 of us took the car down and got all the dust washed off, as we were not supposed to be driving off road. (Had to hide the evidence). Then we parted ways and Cett & I headed downtown for some outlet shopping, and let me tell you Harbour town knows nothing of outlet!!!
We bought a pair of real nice jeans for $7, a woollen dress for $5, 2 Calvin Klein designer shirts for $20 each, a pair of pants for $5, 4 Calvin Klein perfumes for $32 and a DC Shoe woollen jumper for $12 and a top for $15!
It was so good. They had such good bargains and all the stores were designer.
So after that we caught a taxi back down to the strip, and stopped at Planet Hollywood hotel, as they have the Miracle Mile Shops. A whole mile of designer stores! So we had a look in the too, and settled on a new pair of thongs for me as the old ones had more than had their day.
We kept on walking and got some tickets to a Burlesque Show called Jubilee at Bally’s Hotel.
We headed across the road to the Bellagio to see if we could get any Cirque de Soleil tickets, but they were either all sold out or expensive badly seated tickets.
But they were setting up an exhibition in the Bellagio Fine Arts Gallery (yes they’re so ritzy they have their own gallery!) and it was all cirque sculptures of bronze. Some beautiful shapes and lines, and we also had a look at all the masks in the cirque shop as well. Some gorgeous things in there as well.
Came home, got changed and ready for our show, then stopped at Mexican for dinner (great food and an Elvis that follows you around til you give him attention!)
Then headed down to our show.
This show is amazing!!!! 150 dancers, over 1000 costumes and almost an entire zoo of feathers and diamantes. Part of the show was topless but it was done very classy and old style of show so it fitted. They had so many different acts and also muscle men balancing, silk trapeze artists, jugglers and the sets were incredible. They started off with just a normal show of what you would expect, then they did Samson and Delilah and the set had fireworks and flames, the titanic and water running everywhere, then Fred Astaire, ginger Rodgers tribute with the giant staircase it was awesome.
I’m so glad we went to see it, as you just don’t get that anywhere but Vegas.
As it was 2am by the time we got back to the hotel, we just headed for bed.
But today was a great day for all.

Cett & Ellie
xxx


( Las Vegas Day 5 )

Well we had to get up REAL early today, as we have our hire car (a ford mustang!) and we drove to Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon!
So we set off about half 8 in the morning, with hot star bucks in hand and all our warm jackets, as yes…it is god dam freezing in Nevada desert!
We got a GPS thingy with the car for an extra ten bucks a day, so that came in handy.
Within about 35 minutes we hit Hoover dam. I honestly thought it would be bigger,
but when you’re looking down at it from the top, it’s quite deceptive.
We stopped for about an hour, and got some food, soup for me, a hotdog for Davie and Jackie got a dam burger. Literally! It’s just a cheeseburger, but they called it a dam burger on the menu, silly but cute.
So after we took all our happy snaps, and pic’s of Dave being silly like normal, we headed off for the great big hole in the ground…The Grand Canyon!
After driving for a while, Dave let me have a go-very strange driving on the wrong side of the car AND the wrong side of the road!!! It was an auto car so I didn’t have to change gears but I was driving for about an hour- and when we hit the entry for the skywalk Dave took over as it was dirt track (which we aren’t allowed to go on as per our car insurance that I’m not even on tee hee he)
So we thought it would be a short drive on this dirt track-turns out it’s 14 friggin miles! And going at about 40 km’s so as not to turn up too much dust and hit rocks on the bottom of our rental mustang it took about an hour!!!
So after driving for ages we go up to the gates and they charged us $20 bucks to let us bring our car into the parking lot-and no they didn’t park it for us!
So that was all fine and wonderful, so we went into the gift shop part to book a bus to get us out to the actual canyon, and we got charged another $30!!!!!
The way they work it is, the canyon land is actually owned by the Native American Indian Navaho people. And because they get no government funding, they have to charge people crazy dollars to keep things going and I guess pay the liability insurance you would have on someone fallin in!! There are NO GUARD RAILS what so ever!!!
You can walk right up to the edge and bar the sign a few feet back and the little quiet Indian lady asking you politely to move back mam, ya got nuthin.
So anyways, we paid our $30 and jumped on a tour bus ( they have heaps just driving between spots and you jump on and off once you ready to move on) and it took us up to our first spot to see eagle pass and the skywalk-which is another $30 so we didn’t go on it.
But honestly, once you see the sheer size of this thing it’s amazing! You wonder how people use to live out here, and I guess still do.
It’s absolutely breathtaking, and you stand on the edge and you can see til the horizon. The photos do it no justice, it was so peaceful and the colours in the rock are just beautiful.
So one we were done here, we jumped on another bus that took us to Guano Peak- yes the bat kind of guano, they use to mine it here for it’s explosives qualities we were told.
And here there are even better views and you can walk right along the edge to the mining crane and around the rocks.
We saw some American Indian dancing they had on as well. Very colourful.
So once that was all done, we headed back to the car and took the hour long drive on the dirt track back, then another hour or 2 back to vegas, I must admit I slept for most of it.
Once we were home, we hit the showers, and had some dinner at the big buffet they have at our hotel downstairs. After digesting some, Dave and I went on the New York New York Hotel’s Rollercoaster…twice! It was awesome and so scary, all the lights at night it was just perfect!
Then headed down to a real classy joint called “Dick’s Last Resort”. It’s a pub and restaurant where they pride themselves on having rude waiters, napkins on the floor and they make great hat’s for you out of paper and then write random stuff on them like “No! The carpet doesn’t match the curtains” and “I hope the Viagra works better than the Rogaine”.
We got a giant 32-ounce Margherita and the 3 girls shared it. And by the time that was done we were all ready for bed.
All in all a great day!

Luvin you lots

Cett & Ellie
xxx


( Hoover Dam )

( The Grand Canyon )

So today, we slept in..A lot!
Poor Ellie has come down with a sinus infection. L
We spent all morning in bed, resting and trying to recover. Have been keeping up with the sinutab and Panadol. So by lunchtime was feeling much better.
Still cloudy, but I could open my eyes and was more coherent than earlier.

So we ordered room service, hash browns and French toast, which was lovely.
And afterwards we watched a movie, and just took it easy.
I know its bad to be sick on holiday, but in a way I’m glad it was Vegas, as most things happen at night. So during the day I can just rest.

Well after our movie, we talked to Dave and Jackie, and all decided we should hire a car to drive to the Hoover dam and Grand Canyon in!
So Davie went off to organise that, and we went and got some late lunch (4pm hahah)

Decided to go to the Sherwood Forest Restaurant, which is part of our hotel, and sadly were disappointed. We waited a few minutes to be seated, then waited 10 minutes for our drinks order to be taken, a further 10 minutes til we got drinks (2lemonades isn’t hard!), and another 30 minutes to get a cheeseburger (which was so bad with it’s fatty patty and week old brown wilted lettuce, didn’t get eaten) and salad (which was the wrong one I ordered and was 3 dollars cheaper, and missing the 3 ingredients I ordered it for)
So we complained, didn’t pay for much and left. The funny thing is, the people at the table next to us stormed out after waiting 20 minutes for drinks. They drank what they had and walked out saying it was ridiculous and they would not pay for anything they had already had.

So that was fun! We went back to the room, organised our dirty washing, as Jackie had found a Laundromat close by we could use, and Dave returned with our hire car.
A new silver convertible ford mustang!!!
Very nice!! So after successfully driving back from the car place the other end of the strip on the wrong side of the road. He went to go left out of the car park into on-coming traffic. But all is good; we just keep reminding him to think ‘right’ thoughts!

So went and washed laundry (which was desperately needed) and then came back dropped off clean clothes and took the car with the roof down to downtown Vegas!
Ya know when you see the big screen on the inside of the roof in all the Vegas photos, we went there! Its called Fremont Street and is considered downtown las vegas. It’s cool, like a little mini Vegas! So we checked that out, actually looking for outlet shopping (much to Dave’s delight) but found this place instead.
So were there just walking around for about 2 hours, checking things out and taking photo’s of street performers and stunt people.
But we were all getting a bit tired and we have to get up early tomorrow and drive to the Hoover Dam and the Grad Canyon!
So til tomorrow, ciao bella’s

Cett and Ellie
xxx

(we left our camera home today-but used dave and jackie's for a good few photo's-will get them and add to it when we meet them in new york)

Slept in quite a bit today. Ellie is not feeling the best from all the plane air and air conditioning and no fresh air! So we ended up having brunch downstairs in the hotel café, the Sherwood Forest. We got some really yummy soup- Potato cheese and bacon! And some pink lemonade.
So for our first adventure in Vegas, we had a walk down the strip to see all the hotels during the day and find our way a bit.
Our hotel, the Excalibur, is located at the end of the strip. So it’s close to everything, but to see it all you have to start at our hotel walk down one side and then back up the other side. It’s not too bad though as all the hotels are connected, and if you need to cross the road ya just walk from the front door of your hotel, up an escalator over bridge and your in another hotel!!
So we started at our hotel and walked across the bridge to the New York New York hotel, which has the liberty statue and Chrysler building as part of the hotel. When you walk inside you can visit different parts of the hotel that are called parts of New York City! Like Manhattan Bar or espn bar, it’s very cool.
So we walked out to look at the mini version of the Brooklyn Bridge, and walked along the strip. But they are building a new hotel/s there so much of it is a construction site (what you would normally think would be 3 Hyatt’s worth of road!)
We got to the Bellagio but they had men out looking at the fountains, so after waiting 20 minutes for some pretty water, gave up and decided it would be nicer at night with all the lights anyways.
So we kept on walking crossed a road, and went into Caesars palace, which is just huge! We kept on walking and it just doesn’t end! Ever! There are all expensive shops inside like Louis vuitton, Gucci, bebe, prada, and Roberto cavalli! It’s just insane.
We eventually hit some food shops and saw this amazing ice cream shop/café that had really decorative gelato in the window and decided to try some.
$15 LATER! We had one small cup and two flavours of very nice (but not sure if it’s worth that much) ice cream. Chocolate (of course) and peanut buttercup!
By now were getting pretty tired and decided to head back to our hotel, so after another 20 minutes found our way out of Caesars palace and were back on the strip, but on the other side.
There is actually a monorail that runs between all the hotels. Between our’s and the 2 past ours is free, otherwise it’s $5 one way per person (yes everything here is colossally expensive and then you have to tip as well!) We tried to find the monorail but after walking through Bally’s Hotel, the signage just stopped and we figured it was a cheap ploy to get us into the casino to gamble.
They did that yesterday with the heating in our room! Cheek buggars! (turned it up to an uncomfortable level until we had no choice but to leave the room. We complained and after the 2nd phone call it turned itself off-conveniently)

So anywayz walked back to the hotel in the heat, past more shops and hotels and eventually hit ours. We relaxed in our room for a few hours, then headed back after it has cooled down with Dave and Jackie to se the strip at night.


Million mile shops, past the MGM. Back through the MGM, through more heat. Back upstairs relaxed for 2 hours or so, then went down through the strip at night with Dave and Jackie. We stopped and saw the Bellagio fountains, which were absolutely beautiful. They have water fountains ‘dancing’ to music. Ours was lord of the dance. It was just lovely.
Kept going and saw the gondola rides, all sold out for tonight but will try again later in the week.
We walked further down, getting hungry and stopped at Bill’s Saloon, and had special $14.99 steak and nacho’s, nothing special but it was nice and filling.
We waked little further down into the Paris Hotel, which has an Eiffel tower, arc de triumph and hot air balloon out the front, and had a look in some clothe sand shoe shops.

Went into bebe (shop) and tried on clothes and the bitch was so rude, we decided not to buy anything. Jackie asked for help with sizing as it’s different over here, and the cow just told her what ‘bigger’ size she would be and walked off, but not to get the clothes! She just walked off to help someone else!. With me she just didn’t help at all saying she was with someone else, then had a sad when I said I didn’t know if I liked it enough to spend $300 on an outfit I wouldn’t really wear that much, as lovely as it was and as much as I like it, so we left, and went to club with cool band and wicked bottle juggling, glass balancing bar men. Dave sat down to have hid second! Gigantic ice cream hot fudge sundae for the day (seriously these things are the size of his head!) and after 20 minutes or so, I was feeling terrible and looked a lovely pasty white colour so we made our way home to bed.

Ciao my lovely’s and thanks for reading

Ellie & Cett
xxx

( A Day & Night in Vegas )

Well we left LA around 11am; the plane ride was a nice quick one again, so that was nice. You can actually see the strip from the air, which is great, and we also passed over some canyon hills. Once our plane had landed, we grabbed a taxi to our hotel, which was only a 10-minute drive or so.
We got to the hotel, and a lovely man dressed old and medieval, took all of our luggage (bad idea coz later on cett and I had to go get it all from dave and jackie’s room. But oh well).
We got into the hotel, (The Excalibur) and learned quickly that all the people you hear about that hassle you to buy things, actually look like they work for the hotel. They have nice suits and ties and nametags, but they try to do you deals and stuff, which is annoying.
Although Cett and I have found out that Dave and Jackie get hassled a lot more than we do. They only go for couples, and when we are by ourselves they don’t bother us. So that is a bonus!
So we checked in (after passing some people selling everything you can possibly think of) and we are staying in separate towers. Cett & I are in tower 2, Dave and Jackie are in tower 1, which is the other side of the casino.
Only a 5-minute walk but a fair distance still.
Got into our room, and by now, it’s about 2-3 in the afternoon. After we got our room organised and picked up our baggage, Cett and I made our way on a little hotel adventure. The hotels are actually all connected, you don’t even realise when you leave one and get to another unless they are themed and the décor changes dramatically. Our hotel is castle themed, and the one nextdoor is Egyptian, then the one past that is fancy. But you can actually just walk through them all and its quite interesting to see it all change. Some of the restaurants and the casino floors are amazing! They’re absolutely huge and soooo extravagant. You just keep saying to yourself, “Only in Vegas!” and that’s so true. You can get free drinks if you are on the casino floor spending big, smoke while on the machines in the casino (not great that we have to walk through that to get anywhere!), you can even buy oxygen to sit and “refresh yourself” for only $10.
It’s insane! So after our walk, we sat in a restaurant in the fancy hotel, and has sushi, then made our way back to our hotel room, which has a great view of the strip and looks out over the New York New York hotel and the rollercoaster it has going around the hotel.
We sat and watched the lights come on, and according to the big screens of crazy facts they have everywhere, there is 15,000 miles of neon tubing that goes down the strip! I wonder what that would be in km’s.

So that was our first day in Vegas, and boy was it everything they say it is!

Ciao til tomorrow.

xxxx

( Vegas from the hotel room )

Day 2

Got up late, missed breakfast. Went out around lunchtime around from our hotel, in highland plaza, we went to a little French café – we had quiche, crepes and salad. Then off to Rodeo drive to become acquainted with the celebrity lifestyle, we arranged our own extra stretch limo (accordion bus) to get us on our way. The weather had changed significantly from San Fran’s chill to the heat of LA (from about 12 degree high to a 33 degree high). First stop… ice-cream of course which was purchased from a little Italian gelato place, it was very nice. Then we made our way down to Rodeo Drive and lapped up the expensive atmosphere – after little thought or consideration we decided Beverley Hills is where we are going to move to next year. Lexi will fit in just fine in our handbag! After walking past Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Cartier (which we stared at the Jewellery in awe for some time), we entered the doors of beloved Tiffany & Co, we were getting used to this! I imagine practice makes perfect. Ellie also had a look in Jimmy Choo…. Unfortunately no purchases were made as there were no stand our shoes according to the shoes queen. Parched from our walking (the chauffeur was trying to find a suitable parking spot), we decided to go for a drink. After much walking around, we decided to head back. Dave & Jackie went back to the hotel for some R&R, Ellie and I decided to take the bus down to Fisherman’s Market and The Grove. The Grove was an amazing place, a little shopping mecca, full of people and a really great vibe – it was a sensory overlaod. We then decided to head towards Fisherman’s Market which was full of small eateries and gourmet shops, really quaint. We were after some gluten free products so decided to head into Wholefoods – I love this supermarket it was fab!! Found lots of options for Ellie. We were stuffed so decided to head back to the hotel. Later that evening we headed back down to Highland Plaza which was showing a fashion show – Heidiwood which is the fashion line for celebrity Heidi Montag (of the Hills which is a reality/scripted show), with Perez Hilton as the MC. We then had a bite to eat and decided to have a walk up and down Hollywood Boulevard.


Day 3

Had breakfast at the hotel – very average, just bagels nothing to brag about. Today was our tour day. We started off with a tour of the Sunset Strip, down Rodeo and Beverley Boulevard and then Beverley Hills. It really is in a world of its own! We then visited various celebrity homes hoping to spot a few, however no such luck. However it was just amazing to see these places. Though in some instances we thought the name of the tour should be changed to "celebrity homes/gates/hedges"... but hey it was still worthwhile. Then we were off to Universal Studios for the remainder of the day. We saw a few shows and went on the studio tour. It is fascinating how they produce movies and the special effects they use, I found that quite amazing. One particular show we saw was called Waterworld and it used various water and pyrotechnic effects and was very interactive and visually stimulating.. it was a lot of fun. Then walked the city walk … had some bad burgers and fries (no theme park goes without!) and headed back to the hotel. We then had a nap and decided to hit the Sunset Strip that night. The strip is a bustle of activity, lots of restaurants and clubs, we headed toward Sunset Plaza where we found a lovely intimate Italian restaurant called Il Sole. It was a little on the pricey side but it was a great way to end our time in LA, I had Lasagne which was lovely and Ellie had a chicken dish to die for, it was an absolutely amazing meal. All in all we were pretty impressed and had great weather and not so much smog!

Well we will have more to write as we are heading to Las Vegas! Bring on the neon city.

Ciao for now
Love Ellie & Cett


( Photos from Day 2 and 3 in LA )

So we have arrived in LA! Caught a taxi to our hotel, which is surprisingly better than we all thought it would be so that was good.
We are located directly behind the Kodak Theatre and Mann’s Chinese Theatre as well, so we walk around the corner and you are standing on the Hollywood walk of fame! It’s fabulous. Although I must say, there are heaps of people dressed up as Marilyn Monroe, Spiderman, jack sparrow, Elmo, wonder woman….etc
But the thing is (and this is everywhere in America so far) if you talk to them or take photos or interact with them-you gotta tip them for it!
There is also heaps of guys standing on the side of the road with their cd’s trying to sell them, and they shove the headphones at you to listen, which you probably gotta tip them for as well J

But once you kinda say no, and ignore them they generally go find someone else.
So by now we were pretty hungry, and just for Dave (and to see what all the fuss was about) we went to HOOTERS for lunch!!!
Its funny, coz they are all in their little shortie shorts with little stockings and big white socks and shoes. Our waitress was Chrissie Bobby-probably not her actual name but hey. They also had great music playing like boots were made for walking by Jessica Simpson, which I thought was rather fitting. One thing they did have that was pretty cool is, when the girls take your order, they put the order paper on a clip that is attached to a wire that runs across the roof above your head, and throw the damn thing with all their weight in it, so ya gotta be careful not to stand up too high or you will be hit!
It’s fun to watch though.
Well after hooters, we had some leftover and seeing as we have a fridge and microwave we took them back to the hotel. Then headed back out and caught the bus down to Santa Monica Pier.
Did I say bus?? I meant metal shell of death!!!
This woman was crazy, she was going like 80 down st Georges terrace in an accordion bus, and we were in the accordion bit! No one else seemed to mind so I assume this is how they always drive. But we managed to get there alive so I was grateful for that J

So we walked around Santa Monica pier but all the rides were starting to close down for the day, but we saw some cool street performers. Then we walked about 20 km’s, which we were told was a 20-minute walk! So 45-60 minutes later we arrived in Venice Beach, and let me tell you this place is crazy. Full of homeless and hippie’s and crazy people selling all kinds of stuff. And lots of cute adorable puppies as well. We saw the muscle beach part and all the shops selling everything from clothes, to food, giant pizza slices, henna tattoo’s and a man that claims he will curse and swear at anyone you want for only 5 dollars!
To begin with you don’t really feel safe as there just people everywhere, but there are so many people with prams and kids and look happy to be there, so we settled into it a little more, and by the time we got to the other end, it was getting dark. So we caught a taxi back up to the pier and found s nice Italian place with real nice décor to have dinner.

We ended up having pasta and chicken parmigiana and I had chicken Madeira, which was beautiful. We were so stuffed we didn’t have dessert, but caught the bus of death back up to the hotel, and met some great people along the way.
We got back up to our room and all relaxed and eventually fell asleep.
So all in all, our first day in LA was great and full of amazing things to do and see

Ciao Bella’s
Cett & Ellie
xxx

( Day 1 of Los Angeles )

Howdy everyone,

Apologies, as i was very tired when i did the live journal. But i put some photo's up in the wrong album, and everything got very confusing. So if you check san fran days 3 and 4 again, i have fixed it all up.

Sorry guys

Ellie
xxx